BAMBUS, WILLY

BAMBUS, WILLY (1863–1904), one of the first German Jews to join *Ḥibbat Zion. He propagated the organization's ideas in the periodical Serubabel, edited by him in Berlin (1887–88). Bambus became a leading member of *Esra, a society founded in 1883 for the advancement of Jewish agricultural settlement in Palestine and Syria. Later, together with Hirsch *Hildesheimer, Emile *Meyerson, and Isaac Turoff, he established the central committee of Ḥovevei Zion in Paris, with branches in many countries. His intention was to transform the movement into a world organization. Herzl's creation of the Zionist Organization led him to abandon his idea and for a time he became a political Zionist. However, disagreeing with Herzl's rejection of the socalled "infiltration", i.e., small-scale settlement in Palestine without prior international agreement, he became strongly opposed to political Zionism. He expressed this primarily in the periodical Zion which he edited from 1895. In 1901 he was instrumental in the creation of the *Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden of which he became the first general secretary. After the Kishinev pogrom (1903) he worked in the defense organization against antisemitism (Komitee zur Abwehr Anti-semitischer Angriffe) in Berlin, and endeavored, unsuccessfully, to establish a bank for Jewish emigrants. His works included Palaestina, Land und Leute (1898), articles for Die Welt and the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, as well as several works on Jewish settlement in Ereẓ Irsael.

bibliography:

A. Bein, Theodor Herzl (1962²), 215–8, 227, 241; R. Lichtheim, Geschichte des deutschen Zionismus (1954), index; G. Herlitz, in: Davar (Nov. 8, 1954); J. Turoff, in: azj, no. 48 (Nov. 25, 1904), 567–68, no. 47 (1904), 3–4; H. Loewe, Juedische Rundschau., no. 459 (1904), 6–8, 379–80. add. bibliography: R. Heuer (ed.), Lexikon deutsch-juedischer Autoren, 1 (1992), 344–45 (incl. bibl.).

[Oskar K. Rabinowicz /

Marcus Pyka (2^nd ed.)]